


Trash.pge

by otapocalypse



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Death, Drugs, Dystopian Future, F/F, Needles, Sex, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 19:17:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7983130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otapocalypse/pseuds/otapocalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long story short, I woke up with a massic headache and an alarming intensity of disorientation and thought I had the most amazing idea for a lapidot project. I wrote this much before my train of thought completely left me and I was left sitting there in my boxers wondering what the hell made me think this was so great and that I might as well post it. Enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trash.pge

Lapis registered the sound of the plastic tearing as she peeled open the package. Inside was a lone needle, silver and silent and deadly as it flashed in the pale white light of the room. Gathered around were several other of the prison guards, all in plain, disinfected gowns and with concealing masks over their faces. Some were looking at her, some down at their feet, one staring at the crowd gathered outside the room.

Through the glass window, Lapis could see them- the inmate’s family, the victim’s family, and a handful of witnesses. There were no journalists this time, though media hounds were allowed to be there if they truly wished. Lapis didn’t know why anyone would wish to be here. Some in the crowd were crying, some wore faces as blank as the guards’ masks, some looked as if they did this kind of shit every day. Lapis knew that wasn’t true. This didn’t happen that often.

She finished preparing the needle in her gloved hands and walked over to the inmate, who was strapped down to a grey gurney, motionless, expressionless, but Lapis could see the sweat on his pale face, could see the tension in the way he locked his jaw, the muscles in his forehead knotted as, in his struggle to keep his face blank, he was unwittingly making an even more revealing expression.

She urged herself not to feel. She was not above the law. This was not her decision to make. Don’t feel pity for him, don’t sympathize. At the same time, no anger, no thinking “he deserves this,” no telling yourself how it was never this simple. This was her job. She went through the motions almost mechanically, swabbing the entrance point on the arm, pushing the needle into place, starting the IV.

She watched in silence as the man tensed, then slowly relaxed, his muscles going lax, his facial expression falling flat. His eyes glazing over and fluttering half-shut. And she knew it wasn’t over. The sedative was in. She turned and switched out the bags. The paralytic was next. No struggle, no pain. At least that’s what they were told. Why need a paralytic if it didn’t hurt? If the inmate wasn’t going to thrash around, scream, worse…

She shut down her line of thinking and pumped the drug into the man’s arm. There was no visible change with this one. He was out. Still, it took seemingly forever before the drug was all in his system. She turned to look at one of the guards, and he nodded and pulled on a rope. A black curtain slowly fell across the window, and they were all cut off from the world, just Lapis and the other witnesses.

She switched out the drugs once more. This was it. This drug, if used correctly- and often, it wasn’t- would travel through the bloodstream quickly and stop the heart. She never thought when she did this. Never reacted. The first time she had to perform this procedure the doses had been wrong, and the inmate had babbled, begged, and finally screamed, thrashing and twitching in the straps until the drugs had finally brought him to his end. Nobody in the room had reacted, and Lapis had learned what was the norm.

* * *

It was late at night when Lapis finally arrived back at the apartment. Like always, she tried to sneak in, opening the door slowly and slipping inside, but Peridot was awake, a small, bright glow coming from her computer lighting up the otherwise dark room. The girl looked up as Lapis came in, and the blue gem shut the door, locking it firmly behind her.  
“Hey. Are you okay?”

“As okay as I always am.” She answered, but her voice was rough with unshed tears. Tears she knew, she wouldn’t let out. Regardless, she didn’t mind when she felt Peridot’s arms wrap around her from behind.

She’d been silent the rest of the day, dealing with inmates and doing paperwork, working overtime, which she wasn’t actually supposed to do. Nobody batted an eyelash however, when she needed to stay an extra two hours to get everything done. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be home with Peridot; she did. But there was already talk about her being “one o’ them alien folk,” and how she wasn’t as up to the job as humans were. She kept telling herself she didn't have to prove anything to anyone.

“How was your day?”

“Oh! Online classes started, and I think some of the Design junk is actually selling for once-“

Lapis allowed herself a small smile as she was led over to the couch, where she sat down, pressed snug against Peridot and pretending to pay attention to the bright screen in front of her, when really she was stealing glances at Peri as she got more and more animated, talking with her hands and a bright grin on her face. 

The closeness, the warmth, did wonders for Lapis’ mood, and midnight soon found the two of them curled up together, watching videos on the internet that seemed to get more and more obscure, and the mix of drowsiness and weirdness didn’t do much good, and soon they were giggling incoherently at the dumbest things.

Around 1 Lapis stood, empty pop cans and torn open packages of chips scattered on the floor, and walked into the kitchen Peridot remained fixated on the screen, only glancing up once to determine from her roommate’s body language if she was okay or not. She’d quickly learned how to tell if Lapis was leaving to do something or if she was leaving because something had upset her. This time, thankfully, it was the first option.

The blue gem returned with two blunts, one of which she lit and began smoking, and the other she offered to Peridot. 

“Oh, that’s nasty,” Peridot said, eyeing the thing bulging at the seams. 

“You don’t gotta smoke it if you don’t want, Per.” She said. 

Peridot gave the blunt another suspicious look, but then put it between her teeth and dragged Lapis’ face closer, lighting the end of it that way. It took a few awkward tries, but by then they were too far gone to care, and were coughing roughly in addition to their giggling. 

Another hour of getting high and systematically eating everything in the house, they snuffed out their blunts and tossed them in the trash, deciding against drinking as well. 

“It’s enough of a strain on my physical form to eat a ton and get high, and while I usually don’t mind putting my body in way of harm, tonight, for some reason I don’t feel like pushing it,” Lapis babbled, blinking blearily as she tried to avoid staring directly at the light of the laptop screen. How was that thing still alive?

“Why do you think we’re so self-destructive?” Peridot said out of the blue, also not staring directly at anything.

Lapis blinked slowly, and once she was sure she didn’t feel like absolute shit due to the question, said,

“I guess it’s because the Crystal Gems disbanded, and we’re broke, and I’m an executioner, and we don’t do anything to fix our issues of abuse and depression and gods know what else we have.”

“…”

“…”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m the one who asked.”

“…I think I just felt those chips hit-“

“Don’t even finish that sentence.”

“My head feels like a fucking balloon.” Lapis giggled. “A balloon that’s inflating. Is that bad?”

“I think that’s called a headache.” Peridot said, deadpanning. Funny, Lapis thought. Usually I’m the one doing that.

“What?” Peri raised her eyebrows.

Or maybe she’d said that out loud.

“I said… you look like… what I usually look like.”

Peridot started laughing again. “Jesus fuck, what the hell are we doing?”

“Hanging out?”

“No, I mean with our lives.”

“Are they really lives though? We’re just… we’re not real, right? Our bodies are made of light. With mass. Hehe… Mass. And we’re really just sentient rocks.”

“Do you think aliens exist?”

“We’re aliens.”

“But, no I mean.. like, real aliens.”

“Peridot…”

And then they were kissing, Lapis felt nails in her back and the burn of scratches, and then she had Peridot pinned below her and the green gem was making little whimpering noises, and there were dark bruises all over her neck, and then it was daytime, the sun was shining directly in Lapis’ face, and the laptop had died.

What the hell was she doing with her life?


End file.
